


All Wander and Are Lost

by orphan_account



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, OT3, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-05-28 20:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6344218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all injuries heal with time. Some require more than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Krystal/Taemin/Kai

Krystal's eyes gently trace the sallow shadows of exhaustion as they dance across her bandmate's face. She knows that look; after all, burnt out is a state she too is intimately familiar with. Still the dark circles on Victoria's face, exacerbated by a mediocre mobile camera and even worse lighting, make Krystal weary to the bone. Victoria gets a break at least; that's more than the rest of them received for Christmas.

"Make some tea and sleep a little more, okay?" She swallows her bitterness and smiles. It's small but it's much more than anyone else might get from the ice princess Krystal Jung. She swallows down the bitter bite of that thought, too.

Victoria waves lightly and grins, though her expression falters slightly when their manager shouts a burly "You're on in 10!" through the dressing room door.

"f(x), fighting!" Krystal's leader says, fist clenched tightly and eyes a little too bright.

It's not until they hang up the call that Krystal is strong enough to echo back "Fighting." The signature horns of Amber's solo track begin to seep through the crack below the door and Krystal raises herself from the couch with one hand, the other going into the quick cross of a prayer.

A touch to her forehead: Belief in herself. Down to her sternum, right above the heart, and Krystal's lips move in a silent murmur. Jessica unnie, she says. Then shoulder to shoulder, left to right. Krystal remembers Sulli, then Victoria's struggle, and ends with her palms pressed together in a vow of "I will be better. I will do better. There is no other option but to improve."

When she first debuted, the supplication was for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But it's been six years since "La Cha Ta;" now Krystal knows better.

The manager rushes through the door right as she finishes, and Krystal's hands drop to her sides listlessly. It's her show of surrender, not that the manager oppa knows that. With a last glance at the phone laying on the couch—as if Victoria is still there, her cheer of encouragement forever immortalized on the video—Krystal allows herself to be dragged backstage. Hands push and pull at her body, her clothes, her hair, and her microphone, but Krystal ignores it all, waiting for her cue with singular focus.

The first notes of her intro start and Krystal makes her way out into the darkness, alone.

* * *

The music beats its rhythms into the lines of Taemin’s body but rising through the floor onto the raised platform he stands stock still, unable to move under pain of death. This is not his solo stage; it’s their show, Shinee’s, and he’s only one of five as he waits. Taemin finds elevator music—the kind he avoids by taking the stairs; and the techno variation that’s playing now—unbearable always but in this moment between arrival and beginning it’s almost worse somehow. What he hears does not belong to them, and he cannot hand himself over to the numbing hold of muscle memory and hours of exhaustive practice until—

Until this. The silence hits only long enough for him to catch his breath and step into position, and then “View” is straining to be heard over the screams that chant his name like a prayer to a god. He is their god and his own; Taemin’s voice wavers under the sheer power of it and he turns his face to the side, hiding the suffocating disdain beneath a poor veneer of charming arrogance. A closer look would unearth him in an instant, but no one is brave enough to get that far, and he lets Jinki take the lead with a graciousness he’s only pretending he has.

Taemin moves once he’s no longer constrained to sing. Point forward then 1, 2, 3, 4, and a 90 degree bend of the wrist. Down into an open-kneed squat and then back up again to slide backward with a shake of the shoulders that feels silly yet looks anything but when it’s SME’s golden boy dancing it. Child’s play, all of it; and if smiling weren’t more Kibum’s concept than Taemin’s, his would be sinful, but cynical at best. He’s done this a thousand times on stage—hundreds of thousands more times by himself—and this might as well be “Lucifer” or even “Hello” for all that Taemin’s weary of it.

He used to get by on the adrenaline rush—get off on it even—but now not even that is enough for him. Nothing in this world is enough for him. Taemin belts out a note during his part of the bridge and closes his eyes. Under his eyelids is only darkness; out there is the same.

* * *

Kai catches himself right before his lips can curl in dark amusement—Jonghyun was just wildly off-key and Taemin was forced to turn his face away again; Kai knows that reaction of his former friend’s particularly well and the disdain is easy to spot. He bites his lip, hard, and closes his eyes to keep them from crinkling around the edges so they don’t give him away. Fancams record unpredictably harmful things and the internet is a poisonous place, but it’s really the strong grip around his thigh, right above his knee, which keeps his expression flat in polite boredom.

Shinee’s stage ends shortly and Kai claps with the rest of his members. He’s neither the first to begin the applause nor the last to finish; the tense hold relaxes, resting with fingers spread wide on one of Kai’s long legs where they’re sprawled out under the table. Kai snaps his thighs together tightly when he makes the mistake of complimenting Seventeen’s sharp choreo to Sehun and the same hand moves at a painfully leisurely pace to stroke very close to Kai’s crotch. It’s only the pants clinging tightly to his body that keep Chanyeol’s nails from leaving deep scratches as they circle; Kai shoots Sehun an apologetic glance and turns away, cutting their burgeoning conversation short before it’s even begun. The lingering touches cease and again the hold relaxes.

EXO wins…something; too wrapped up in avoiding the explosive tipping-point of Chanyeol’s possessive anger, Kai doesn’t hear what. He follows the leader dutifully to accept the award, smiles when everyone else does, and bows, shouting “We are ONE!” with the rest. Somehow when they get back to their seats he’s maneuvered into a chair between D.O. and Sehun, and when he doesn’t protest Chanyeol’s gaze from across the table grows dark—and not in a way that spells pleasure either, at least not for Kai.

Shoulders carefully loose and hands purposefully left hanging with faux nonchalance at his sides, Kai sits the rest of the night with his lip worrying between his teeth and his toes curled anxiously in his shoes. He pretends not to see when Baekhyun waves his hands for Kai’s attention; he pretends not to hear when D.O. whispers under his breath, “It’s not right, his hold on you.”

But the others don’t understand: Kai’s fear is paralyzing and there are rules between the two of them that he simply cannot break.


	2. Krystal/Taemin/Kai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Potentially triggering themes (Abuse, dubcon) in Kai segment (the last one)

The stylist brushes blush across the high planes of Krystal’s cheekbones—her hands are shaking and she almost blinds Krystal more than once with the tools of her trade. Krystal thinks pityingly that the poor thing must be new; Krystal herself could probably do a better job on her own make-up at this point, but the manager oppa has her cornered again. He’s never been one to pass up a good opportunity, after all.

Smile, he tells her. Pliant, obedient, _voiceless_. Be those things for the camera, is what he says, his intonation flat and bored because he knows how acerbic she can be when she stops paying attention. Krystal knows this too—this inescapable part of her—and keeps her guard up, always, even when passivity threatens. At least she’s not alone this time. Kai, if Krystal remembers correctly—and isn’t confusing one tall dancer with another—isn’t that bad of a partner in a photo shoot. And surely the sexy-cute EXO member, so well loved by his fans, will bring up the sales of the exercise gear their bodies are selling. Or is it winter coats? Krystal doesn’t remember; frankly, she doesn’t care.

“Shoes,” her manager hisses then. She spaced out and he noticed, and now he’s glaring fiercely. “Sketchers sells _shoes_.”

“I’m not 14 anymore, oppa,” she tells him, unimpressed with his anger; hers is infinitely more potent. “If you’re going to glower, go waste the energy on someone who cares.” Is that rude? He gapes and the stylist’s eye pencil stills dangerously close to Krystal’s eyelids. Yes, then, she was rude. Is rude.

Is _always_ rude, it seems.

Fine! She wants to scream at them, all of them, all of a sudden. I’m rude? Well add that to the long list of things I am, things that you’ve made me in to. Is _this_ the reality you wanted? It’s reality alright, but she’s getting really tired of it.

Krystal sees Kai across the room, flirting with his own young, female stylist and wearing a winning smile that makes girls and boys around the world swoon. _He_ isn’t like her, isn’t jaded yet. It makes him appealing, in a way, but the feeling wars fiercely with a jealousy so forceful that Krystal has to swallow it down or risk being eaten alive.

What is his reality? She wonders as she follows directions like a good lemming, draping herself this way and that all over his lean, lanky form. Does he love his life the way she used to love her own? He’s doing very little of the work at the moment, just standing and looking effortlessly brooding with his arms crossed over his chest in bad boy nonchalance; it’s not a kind thought—that she’d love being an idol if she didn’t have to do anything either—but Krystal is long past trying to banish things like that.

They’re given a two minute break that’s really just an excuse for the photographer to critique his models while she and Kai gulp down water, get their make-up retouched, and try to at least _look_ like they’re attentively listening. Or, Kai does; Krystal’s been in the business too long to keep pretending she cares, especially when she really, really doesn’t.

Her hoobae smiles at her when they start again, and his eyes crinkle into little half-moons so pretty that they make her wonder about the look his face wears when he’s truly happy and not just pretending to be. Content might be the word she’s actually looking for, though, because Kai’s eager compliance to the photographer’s curt demands comes across as surprisingly genuine, even if that attitude doesn’t quite count as anything Krystal would call happiness.

When she’s placed precariously on a rickety wooden stool and he’s told to stand in front of her so that Krystal can fold herself over his shoulder with her arms around her neck, the grimace of pain that sparks briefly in his expression is surprising too. She doesn’t quite know why she does it, but Krystal buys him a few moments by begging the use of the bathroom. When she comes back, his smile is more fixed than before, all traces of the pain are gone, and Krystal almost thinks she imagined the whole thing. But his shirt is a pale white, stretched thin over his shoulders, and transparent enough that when Krystal climbs back into position with no support except her own grip on the seat of the stool, she sees what broke Kai earlier.

His back—all of it from the soft curves of his buttocks and clean up to his shoulder blades—is an ugly, splotchy canvas of blue and purple bruising. Krystal loses her hold in shock; she could save herself with the catch of a hand on his skin, but can’t bring herself to hurt Kai further. She falls, hurting herself instead.

* * *

Kibum tells Taemin he’s trending #1 on Naver like Taemin should be surprised; he isn’t. And he doesn’t care, either, that netizens are convinced the person he’s kissing on the cover of his album teaser is himself; it isn’t.

Even Taemin isn’t stupid enough to take ego quite that far. No, doing so would give too much away—too much that he doesn’t actively try to hide from the idol-hungry outside world but doesn’t care to share either. Taemin’s self-absorption, such that it is, will remain his and his alone as long as the success of what he does depends on the image of who he is.

An adorable maknae. Unfailingly polite. Endearingly shy when it comes to looking people in the eye and baring a little bit too much of his utter disdain. That’s where his less savory side comes to light. The Taemin that’s edgy and filled with a talent that’s wasted on his youth. The one who can release a song called “Sexuality” on his solo album without anyone batting too many eyelashes. Taemin is a truly global star; he does what he wants because he can.

But not necessarily because he wants to. More recently Taemin can’t remember actually _wanting_ anything. He dances and sings and smiles for the fans, for the camera, for the members—all when told and all without a second thought—but he doesn’t want because he can’t remember what it’s like to not have everything. Only having everything is like having nothing at all, to Taemin at least. And trending on social media is meaningless too, especially since no one seems to understand what’s really going on.

 _Press It_ is about lips, one pair against another—and Taemin’s against Kai’s.

That was Taemin’s idea, actually. Not necessarily because he wanted to, but because he knew he could. They used to fool around, the two of them trainees with all of the burdens and without all the fame, needing a release and finding it, for a time, in each other. There are few things in his life that Taemin can remember wanting more than he used to want Kai—or Jongin, as he was back then. Taemin suggests Kai as his partner for the album cover shoot for that reason, too. He isn’t sure he _wants_ to want anymore—seems to realize somewhere deep within himself that he cannot continue to rise head and shoulders above the rest if things long forgotten are allowed to slowly surface again—but if anyone was going to show him how, it was going to be Kai.

And in a way, kissing Kai had ended up being exactly what Taemin meant it to be: a brush of lips that didn’t mean anything until Taemin allowed it to.

The photographer had had other ideas, though, because he'd read no passion in their embrace. “Let’s try something different,” he’d said as he instructed Taemin to straddle Kai’s thighs and lean in close. Too close, Taemin had felt—still feels, even now as Kibum waves his phone around mindlessly while Taemin sits in the van beside him and remembers. In that way kissing Kai was _nothing_ like it should have been.

Taemin despises those situations, as a rule—the ones in which he has no control. It’s why he retains the cruel curl of his upper lip even when told to smile winningly, and why he dances with a little more flair than anyone else, even when forcefully reminded that he isn’t the only face on Shinee posters. Still, the long, familiar line of Kai’s neck, the involuntary parting of his lips when Taemin had been told to move toward him and for once had actually listened, the fluttering of Kai's eyelids when their mouths had touched, fitting together like a perfect puzzle—all of these had drawn Taemin in much further than he was ready for. They weren’t supposed to be all in each other’s space like that, and he hadn't liked it. He didn't like it now.

The photographer had called out his praises loudly, breaking the moment between them to rearrange Taemin’s position on Kai’s lap so that the two were sitting a little more intimately. “Put your arm around his neck,” the photographer had demanded. Taemin hadn't liked that either, but he'd caught Kai’s blush and did it anyway, just to see the other squirm. And it'd worked too, at least until the shoot had started once more. Then Kai had been all business; breathing deeply, banishing the faint pink that had dusted his cheeks, and obediently tilting his neck to highlight the cut of his jaw a little more. Taemin had followed Kai's lead; he'd felt his control slipping away again, but in that moment his mind blanked of any alternative.

Taemin has never liked the feeling of falling; strangely, he hadn't minded it then and he doesn’t mind it now.

* * *

Kai opens Naver, needing something to alleviate a boredom that even dreamless sleep cannot cure. He’s greeted with an image of his face, apparently trending at #1, and shuts the app in horror. That shoot with Taemin was out of Kai’s control—though it’s likely the manager hyung, knowing Kai’s preferences, thought he was doing his charge a favor in agreeing when the Shinee star demanded Kai’s participation. Taemin’s arrogance blew Kai away when he’d first been informed that they’d be doing a shoot together; with his phone held precariously in a shaking hand it is now Taemin’s utter disregard for others that Kai finds amazing. Kai knew it was there, had always found the presence of Taemin’s sole focus on himself one haunting step behind everything the other idol did. Still, the fear that drives Kai is so consuming that he forgets sometimes what it’s like for those people who live without being afraid. Kai, at least, cannot imagine the freedom to think only of himself—or of himself at all.

He hides the device deep in his sock drawer, knowing it will do no good but hoping against logical hope that Chanyeol won’t succumb to his Naver addiction. All Kai asks the heavens for is today—for one day of Chanyeol not looking. He gets a few measly hours instead.

Kai knows the very instant Chanyeol sees the picture because the rapper, lazily lying across the room on his own bed, sits up in a smooth movement that’s also dangerously slow and says “Come here.”

Chanyeol’s voice is deep, deeper even than usual. His tone, chillingly tinged with a threat that only Kai can ever seem to hear, leaves no room for argument and is enough of a warning in itself. You will not like what happens next, it tells him. I take no pleasure in this either, it tells him too, despite Kai knowing that Chanyeol loves him best with his mouth gagged, his hands tied, and his tan skin bruising black under the rough caress of Chanyeol’s fingers.

I don’t believe you, Kai wants to say back to Chanyeol, back to that voice that prompts immediate response even when Kai wants nothing more than to stay cocooned in the safety of his bed covers. Kai doesn't remember the last time he talked back to Chanyeol and goes to the other as bidden.

You liar; you live for this! He wants to cry the words out when Chanyeol’s grip pulls hard at the hair on Kai’s nape and drags the younger’s face down into the mattress. Kai lets out a whimper of pain; Chanyeol’s hold tightens and Kai regrets the sound for what it does to the insatiable libido of the man panting noisily over him. Regrets not knowing _this_ side of his band member when he’d fallen for the other so easily.

There’s an arm around Kai’s neck holding him upright against Chanyeol’s bare chest now, and Kai gives in to the feeling of being helplessly under another’s control. He doesn’t mind it—is usually even stimulated by the manhandling—but today there’s something off in the way Chanyeol carelessly flips him around like a rag doll and then begins to slam into him such that Kai’s back hits a hard and steady beat against the headboard of Chanyeol’s bed. They have a safe word for moments like this one; Kai considers using it but gets the impression that Chanyeol will ignore him if he tries.

Instead he tells himself that this is a punishment deserved; that even the nastiest of bruises heal with time; and that the fabric of whatever he’s meant to wear on the set of that shoot he has with Krystal Jung tomorrow will be enough to cover the mess of injury that Kai knows will be his back when Chanyeol’s through.


	3. Krystal, Taemin, Chanyeol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Potentially triggering themes (Abuse) in Chanyeol segment (the last one)

Krystal gapes openmouthed at the hand pressing a gentle massage into her ankle. It isn’t her prettiest expression, she knows, but the shock is hard to hide. They don’t have this kind of relationship. Sure, she essentially sprained her ankle to protect his back at that shoot a few days ago, but Krystal and Kai aren’t friends. They barely even know each other, yet it is definitely Kai’s grip on Krystal’s still sore injury that makes her sigh in relief. It’s a strange feeling—to be taken care of like this; Krystal thinks it’s kind of nice.

Still, she doesn’t hesitate to tell him “You don’t have to do this, you know.” It isn’t his fault she got in trouble with the manager oppa for the ruined shoot—even though the stool had broken under Krystal as she fell and was as much a hazard to her health as her own conscience had been. And it wasn’t Kai’s responsibility to make up for that either. Krystal didn’t need him to look after her, all sweet and apologetic like falling hadn’t been a choice she made on her own. Besides, that sort of damage is reparable; the remainder of the shoot had been rescheduled for today. Though Krystal’s ankle still bothers her if she stands on it for too long, she remembers Kai gritting his teeth against the pain of his bruised back and thinks that if he can do it, so can she.

This is sort of foreign territory for her. Krystal isn’t used to relying on another human being—at least not one who isn’t much more heavily leaning on her. She isn’t used to having unknown standards to live up to; standards that she hasn’t already overcome with a kind of graceful weariness since there’s nothing new under the Seoul sun anyway. But here they are, in a weird balance of give-and-take where Kai asks for a break if he notices Krystal wincing a little too obviously and where Krystal gives him the half of her lunch that she’s too tired to eat. Krystal likes to think that she gives because Kai’s own portion is meagerly equal to hers—a person maybe two thirds his size—and not because manager oppa is glaring a reminder into her skull that she’s on a pre-comeback diet these days. Regardless, Kai eats a little better on this one day of their make-up shoot and Krystal gets a glimpse of that beautiful happiness again.

Just like the last time, the sight takes her breath away. Unlike the last time, there’s no jealousy in her heart, only unfamiliar tenderness for this boy yet unsullied by their lifestyle and an overwhelmingly powerful need to keep him that way.

It’s that need which leads her to address the elephant in the room during another one of their breaks. The late afternoon sun peaks through the doorway as the photographer exits his studio for a quick smoke; Krystal gazes at it longingly and catches Kai doing the same. There’s an undercurrent of similitude in that moment and she blurts out before she can stop herself “What happened to you?”

Kai’s face falls. Krystal almost wishes she could take it back but her curiosity is too strong—and anyway, when did she start to care about her words affecting other people? Well, she thinks, if he doesn’t want to answer me, he doesn’t have to. Only he does and that mere fact surprises Krystal more than anything Kai actually says.

He starts his story with the admission that it’s really him kissing Taemin in the _Press It_ posters. Krystal pumps her fist and shouts “I knew it!” That makes him smile again; Krystal finds that she’s glad it does, particularly when he continues and his pleasant expression falters. Kai doesn’t say much, just that “Chanyeol doesn’t like it,” but it’s enough for Krystal to get the general gist of what’s going on here.

“Your band member beat you up?” She knows she sounds incredulous, disbelieving almost, but the idea is absurd. As idols, their bodies are their greatest asset; Chanyeol should have known better.

Kai hesitates. “He—I—we hook up. Sometimes.”

Ah. Krystal wasn’t expecting _that_. “He was jealous?” She prompts carefully, wary of scaring Kai into silence as if he’s a startled rabbit and not a grown man of 22. Kai nods and she presses on. “Does he—I mean, does this happen often?”

Though Kai shakes his head vehemently, a defense of Chanyeol doubtless hanging from his lips, Krystal feels like he isn’t being entirely honest. She’s someone who’s never quite honest herself; as such, it’s easy to read in others. It’s not until Kai’s whispered “It’s my fault; I should have known better,” his words barely discernible amongst the shouts of the crew as the shoot starts up again, that Krystal finally thinks she understands. She places a soothing hand against the hard planes of his lean face and rubs her thumb along the line of his cheek bone.

Her mouth says nothing, but the comforting touch says it all: It isn’t your fault. Thank you for tell me. _You are not alone in this_.

* * *

 

A slight shoulder brushes into Taemin’s side with too much force to be anything other than purposeful, and so Taemin is likewise purposefully slow in dragging his gaze down to the person who just passed him by. He briefly considers brightening his expression and bowing in apology—because appearances and all that shit—but doesn’t bother when he registers the pretty face glaring up at him.

“Fancy running into you, hoobae,” he drawls lazily. “Especially in a hallway as wide as this.”

Krystal’s eyes narrow and her expression remains as cold as ice at his veiled reprimand; Taemin doesn’t even flinch. “He was beaten because of you!” She whispers furiously, voice low in volume but heavy in blame.

Taemin doesn’t know who she’s talking about and he isn’t sure he cares. Still, who does she think she is, holding him responsible for someone else’s misstep? Idol life taught him to look out for the interests of Number 1; if anyone else is too stupid to do the same, why should the fault fall on him? He takes a step closer, crowding Krystal against the wall with his height, and snorts incredulously.

“I don’t recall physically assaulting anyone recently,” Taemin tells her with a saccharine smile. This is a waste of his time and he has the live taping of a radio program to get to, but Taemin can’t resist the opportunity to put her insolence in place. “As such, however your friend was hurt, I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with me.” He notes with interest how the f(x) beauty’s face flushes; his gut says it’s anger making the blood pool in her cheeks, but her tiny clenched fists and the lip she pulls between her teeth suggest it might be more than that. _Interesting_.

“You’re an arrogant ass,” Krystal hisses, her eyes shining up at him through long, dark lashes. “Just like Chanyeol. Kai’s too good for both of you.”

Taemin’s attention, already wandering ahead to select the character he’ll play on radio later, snaps back to the present in an instant. He doesn’t understand the sudden and overwhelming urge to ask, to know, to beg until the frozen vixen tells him everything; Taemin doesn’t like things that he doesn’t understand, and he wonders vaguely why having Kai sort of in his life again is forcing him to confront so much that he’d rather avoid.

When Krystal thrusts a piece of paper in his face and says “Fix this” like she’s his manager or his mother or something before continuing in her original path with her shoulders back and her head held high, Taemin doesn’t quite know what to do with what she’s given him. It’s a way to contact Kai, of that Taemin has no doubt, but if Krystal gave it expecting an apology, she was sorely mistaken. Taemin doesn’t say sorry, particularly on those occasions when he’s actually done nothing wrong, and he certainly doesn’t worry about the health of a rival idol, no matter how entwined their pasts might be. He doesn’t take blame unnecessarily, either, so he pockets the phone number and forgets about it guiltlessly.

Taemin pulls it out with the same lack of remorse and disregard for others when he’s seated in front of a microphone a couple of hours later and the host asks if there’s anyone Taemin wants to call in honor of his newest single. Shinee’s maknae clears his throat in embarrassment that doesn’t exist and looks down at the slip of paper in his hands. The whole deception makes him endearingly shy, Taemin knows, and he makes sure he’s blushing noticeably for the camera when the host coaxes him into sharing.

“ _Press It_ is about love, and ‘Press Your Number’ is about romantic or sensual love,” he reminds the listeners. The host nods along as Taemin follows the script, then looks up in slight panic when Taemin ignores the next lines written for him and deviates. Taemin isn’t worried though; and neither will the host be, not once he figures out what Taemin’s got up his sleeve. He’s not planning, per se, because what’s the point, really, but Taemin’s not above petty tricks to alleviate the boredom sometimes, and he tells himself resolutely that that’s what’s happening now. This is merely a moment to boost his carefully constructed image, and if such an occasion leads Krystal to believe Taemin is concerned for Kai’s well-being, even better.

“But there are other kinds of love too,” Taemin points out knowledgably. “Like the kind between members, or between friends.” He winks at the host and shoots a thumbs-up at his manager who’s lounging next to the door and frowning slightly.  “So I’d like to call an old friend of mine, if that’s alright with you, Ryeowook-sunbaenim? I’m sure Kai would love to say hello to the listeners.” Ryeowook, who’d rolled his eyes at Taemin’s improvisation, perked up at Taemin’s offhanded mention of the EXO member and nodded his approval.

“Is our Taemin-ssi ‘feeling freaky’ for EXO’s Kai? What do you think, everyone?” He grins when the listener comments fill up with keyboard smash clamoring for Kai’s presence on the phone line. “Please,” he gestures in Taemin’s direction and Taemin hides his smirk with a dry cough into his elbow, “press that number!”

Taemin’s hit with the urge to roll his own eyes back at the radio host, but he recognizes that a wayward gaze is more difficult to conceal than an unschooled expression and resists. Instead he smiles beatifically at the camera, hands Kai’s number to the radio PD, and adopts cute poses that make Ryeowook laugh as they wait. Being that adorable maknae figure is as easy as breathing; Taemin does it with disdain.

 _Ring_. The line rings once and Taemin flashes a V sign.

 _Ring ring_. It rings again and he teases an invisible Kai, “Hey! You’re not about to leave me hanging, are you, my friend?”

 _Ring ring ring_. By the third ring Taemin wonders if Kai really is going to leave him out to dry on live radio. He finds himself strangely relieved by the possibility.

 _Ring ring ring ri_ —“Hello?”

* * *

“You’re not Kai,” a voice tells Chanyeol through the phone connection. The voice is right: Chanyeol is not Kai—not even close.

Aside from that, Chanyeol’s _busy_ and he has half a mind to hang up the call just to be spiteful. Kai would let him, Chanyeol knows, and would probably protest very little, if at all. Kai’s boneless like that and when Chanyeol presses down between the younger’s shoulder blades to resume fucking him into the mattress, Kai’s boneless like that too. He makes little puffs—distress or pleasure, Chanyeol doesn’t care—each time Chanyeol rocks into him and there’s a part of Chanyeol that hopes whoever’s on the other line can hear the noises the pretty little dancer makes.

The other part of him is angry—is _always_ angry—and possessive enough to fold his torso over Kai’s back and growl in his ear that he belongs to Chanyeol, that no one but Chanyeol can ever see him like this, that he just loves the thrill of it all, doesn’t he? Kai can’t answer with his face stuffed into a pillow, but Chanyeol doesn’t want or expect him to. What Chanyeol does expect, though, is for whoever called Kai’s phone to reveal himself already, and the anger simply grows when the voice on the other end of the line says nothing.

Instead, it’s a new voice—but still a vaguely familiar one—with a tone that’s careless and a lilt that’s a little too cold for someone who burns as hotly as Chanyeol. “This is Shinee’s maknae, Taemin,” the second man says and that’s when the familiarity registers. That’s when Chanyeol moves faster, pushes deeper, pounds harder; that’s when he does what he can to bruise the memory of him into the body of the boy beneath him because Taemin’s come up in the context of Kai too much recently. Chanyeol has had enough.

“Is Kai around?” Taemin asks. “I’m on air with Ryeowook sunbae right now and wanted to say hello to my friend.”

“He’s busy,” Chanyeol grunts. Kai emits a high pitched whine as Chanyeol flips him over roughly and continues to move.

The sound carries through—as does Chanyeol’s heavy breathing which grows increasingly breathless as the moments of the phone call stretch on—and it’s Ryeowook who’s brave enough to wonder, “Everything all right there, Chanyeol-ssi?”

“I’m working out,” he informs the radio host bluntly, his low voice even lower than usual and almost gravelly with the force of Chanyeol’s barely contained fury. “And Kai’s busy,” he repeats before hanging up the call with a meager “Sorry for your trouble” haphazardly thrown in at the end to appease the company and the restless fans.

Kai’s lying open on the bed before him and the sight of his nakedness, marred here and there with marks from Chanyeol’s mouth and hands, makes Chanyeol see red. Dropping the phone somewhere in the wrinkled folds of the comforter, Chanyeol grips Kai’s shoulders hard and lifts the other’s upper body to pull Kai close.

“That was Taemin,” he spits out, pulling a pained cry from Kai when his hold tightens. Kai’s face blanches immediately and Chanyeol shakes him hard. “Why does he have your number, huh? Did you give it to him? You did, right?” As Chanyeol forces out a false confession Kai tries to cry out, to defend himself, to deny the accusation in its entirety because it’s simply not true. He flails a little and the curve of his nail catches Chanyeol in the chin, scratching the taller boy just enough to break the skin and make him bleed.

Chanyeol slaps him for it—for thinking he could fight back, or that he even had the right to. Chanyeol slaps him again for the call. And again for giving Taemin his number. And again. And again. And again.


	4. Krystal/Taemin/Kai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE: Kai's chapter has been added here. (10/01/2016)
> 
> Warning: References to Kai and Krystal dating.

The parking gate squeaks as it lifts to let another car into the garage and Krystal squints through the darkness, hoping to get a glimpse of the vehicle’s passenger through the tinted windows. It’s an impossible feat and her members often tell her she needs to work on facials more in the practice room mirrors if the expression she’s making is to become anything but a glare. They think she’s always at least a little angry; she thinks of the bruises across Kai's back and concludes that at the moment they would be right.

The car’s occupants alight but the man and the woman who are so entwined and sneaking such obvious glances at each other and their surroundings are not who Krystal waits so anxiously for. Her meeting is clandestine too, though for different reasons than those of the couple who can’t seem to keep their hands—or tongues—to themselves.

“I read the articles on Naver,” she tells Kai less than ten minutes later when his manager finally drives his van into the hotel garage where she’d texted frantically to meet. “They said your bunk had collapsed and that you were napping and got all banged up, but I know better and I just…” She pauses there, trails off maybe, and catches the barest tint of a blush under all the makeup caked heavily to hide the bruises that she knows mar Kai’s pretty face.

There are a lot of things she wants to ask him, a lot she wants to say, but she settles on “Let’s go swimming,” and revels a little in the fact that she manages to surprise him. “Don’t wear a shirt,” she commands almost as an afterthought, and she smiles briefly when those words surprise Kai even more.

He comes out of the men’s changing room in a pair of tiny little boxers that would leave very little to Krystal’s imagination if she hadn’t already had the whole of him pressed against her back that day at the photo shoot. As it is she can’t appreciate his beauty anyway because, likely knowing her reasons already, he’s washed his face and cleaned every bit of cover up away from his skin. It hurts to look, honestly, but then Krystal considers how painful it must have been when Chanyeol created the bruises in the first place and she steps toward him. She’s strangely glad that he doesn’t flinch or even look afraid when she wraps her fingers around his wrist and pulls him gently behind her toward the hot tub.

It’s a confusing emotion, this gladness, and a little too close to the happiness she’s forgotten she used to want to have. Krystal doesn’t know yet whether she likes it.

Kai makes to slip into the water but Krystal stops him, forces him first to sit on the steps as she enters the smaller, hotter pool and examines his body inch by injured inch. Her body is essentially trapped between his longer legs; in any other moment she’d care about the proximity—she’s not usually one to let anyone get that close—but it’s Kai’s body that she’s concerned about right now and she finds that keeping her tears at bay takes all of her concentration. That’s a strange emotion too because she’s gotten her title of Ice Queen for a reason. Krystal Jung doesn’t cry—not when her parents moved back to the US and left her in the clutches of SM; not when her sister and SNSD parted ways; not when Sulli left the group; not ever.

Yet here she is, meticulously checking each of the bruises on a fellow idol’s body and blinking furiously every few seconds because she won’t be able to see anything if she cries.

Why she’s not more concerned about him seeing the tears is a question all its own, but Krystal can’t handle thinking about that just yet.

She takes in the injuries done to his face alone—the two black eyes, the split lip, the busted nose—and focuses hard on channeling all the positivity and healing and belief she can muster into her hands as she runs the tips of her fingers over Kai’s skin. It’s been a long time since she’s needed to rely on a higher power to get her through; she does it now without thought, only knowing that she alone is not enough to make Kai better.

Kai speaks then, forms more than mere sounds of slight pain or distress for the first time since meeting Krystal in the concealing darkness of the parking garage. “I’ve had worse,” he says, the words slightly slurred around the cut on his lip that opens a little when his mouth moves. Kai winces and Krystal shushes him with a finger hovering just over his face.

She doesn’t believe him for a second and wastes no time in telling him that. “You’re such a liar,” she replies, voice breaking halfway. He gets the gist of her words despite this and surprises her this time when he raises a calloused hand to cup her cheek.

“You’re crying,” he informs her. Krystal doesn't even realize the moment when she stopped trying so hard to keep her tears to herself. “Please don’t cry for me.”

She hates that he’s the one comforting her when she’s the one who’s supposed to be there for him to lean on. She knows she wouldn't be able to do the same, not if the roles were reversed and she found herself in his place.

He says softly, “I’m not worth your tears.” She cries harder and hardly knowing what she’s doing even as she does it, turns her face towards his and kisses him.

Kai’s surprised, she can tell by the way his hand stiffens against her cheek, but his lips soften against hers and he even moans softly when her tongue swipes like the touch of a ghost over his cut. Krystal’s surprised too, didn’t even know she felt more for this broken boy than mere physical attraction, but she’s shocked enough to gasp when she pulls away and finds that Kai is also crying.

“I’m not,” he chokes out, lips slightly swollen but not from injury anymore. He takes a deep, shuddering breath as the tears on both of their faces continue to fall. “I’m not worth it.”

Krystal steps through the water, close enough for her chest to brush his where he sits, and wraps her arms around his much broader shoulders. He buries his face in her neck and his body heaves, wracked with sobs.

She doesn’t understand why yet, but Krystal absolutely means it when she holds him as tightly as she can and says, “You're worth it to me."

* * *

They pity him, Taemin’s fans do. But he’s never needed their sympathy, and he doesn’t need it now.

His gaze catches on the newspaper left so thoughtfully for his perusal as he waits to finish filming “Sayonara…” Years of study effortlessly translate the kanji into hangul, and he could read the thing if he really wanted to, but something’s got Taemin feeling lazy and he turns to Naver instead, his lips curling into a sneer as he scrolls through endless Naver headlines:

“Meet Krystal and Kai, K-Pop’s Newest Superpower Couple”

“EXO's Kai And F(X)'s Krystal Lose Fans”

"f(x) Krystal and EXO Kai Dating Causes Big Problems?"

When he skims the title of the last one Taemin actually laughs aloud and is then quick to cover his own mouth in surprised embarrassment. There’s no one else in the room with him; still, he’s shocked at such a slip in his personal control.

Big problems? He thinks scathingly. If only netizens knew what Kai really liked, what he let Chanyeol do to him back then when they were all a little younger and less experienced than Taemin would like to think he, at least, is now. What big problems might Kai meet then, if the whole world knew?

It’s a dangerous trail to follow, especially since Taemin’s fully aware how closely Kai’s situation aligns with his own. The EXO dancer is much more submissive than Taemin, who, regardless of his partner’s gender identity, has always been equal parts demanding and commanding in bed. And Taemin’s not edgy enough, or stupid enough, or, frankly, turned on by violence enough, to inflict the kind of punishment on Kai’s body that Chanyeol liked to.

But Taemin…Taemin is certainly an enigma to many—perhaps even to himself. And he likes men at least as much as he likes women, if not more—though both he approaches with the same certain amount of disdain he applies to all things in life. What big problems might he meet if someone were to spill his secrets the way someone’s just spilled Kai’s? No matter how much his life and Kai’s might overlap in circumstances, Taemin realizes this is a question he’s never considered, an entirely possible situation that has never even occurred to him to think about. He also realizes now that maybe, if this happened to him, he wouldn’t care.

His manager texts him to come out, that they’re ready for him. Taemin closes his Naver app but doesn’t put an end to his thoughts, these questions about Kai and himself circling endlessly on a loop in his mind for the rest of the day’s filming.

It’s exhausting to spend time contemplating the situation of another, even when those thoughts never veer anywhere particularly empathetic or feeling. Taemin goes to bed right after dinner, but makes sure to post a cutesy maknae pic with carefully mussed bedhair, the hotel comforter artfully arranged to best display his collarbone and bare shoulders, and a lazy peace sign tossed up last minute.

“Congratulations to the happy couple,” the first half of his caption reads. It’s bland show of support, mindless almost, but it’s not what sends netizens and kpop fans around the world into a tailspin. Instead, such reaction arises from the second half of Taemin’s caption, from his bitter words born from a realization that he doesn’t care what happens to him, that he’s arrogant enough to believe the world will love him anyway, and that he’s prepared to do anything to alleviate the boredom, even if he’s not the only one who’s likely to fall.

Taemin smirks as his fingers fly across the keyboard. He tags his two fellow idols’ official Instagram and writes to Krystal specifically: “May your romance with Kai be as hot and hidden as mine once was.”

* * *

Sehun shoves a large chocolate bubble tea into Kai's hands, causing Kai's phone to drop to the linoleum floor of their dorm room kitchen.

"Sorry," Sehun apologizes. Kai's aware enough to realize Sehun's probably sorry for more than the fallen phone, and Sehun confirms this when he adds quietly, "You know, Chanyeol and..."

His voice fades but his expression remains solemnly hopeful as he waits for Kai to take a sip of the peace offering he's brought.

Kai does so, obedient to a fault no matter who's asking it of him, and tries not grimace. He's never really liked chocolate. It's too much bitterness under the guise of being entirely sweet, and it makes him uncomfortable when he considers how close that sounds just like himself—too dark and too bitter.

To be honest, Kai would down an entire bucketload of chocolate bubble tea if it would get Sehun, and everyone else, to stop hesitantly bringing Chanyeol's name up in conversation. Kai doesn't want to talk about the boy he used to love, or about the man that boy became, the one Kai's doing his best to keep from still loving. But even if Kai managed to shut Sehun up somehow, he can't control the Internet and he can't control Taemin.

This is particularly clear when Kai finally bends in half to lazily drag his phone from off the floor and glimpses a notice from Instagram on his screen. Taemin's tagged him and Krystal in something—speak of the devil—and Kai's exhausted, suddenly, with the drama of it all.

Does he want to see what waters Taemin's disturbed now? Probably not. Does he care? Of course. That's always been his problem, actually, that he cares too much and believes too little in the idea that not everyone is truly good.

His finger slides a wisp across the screen and he's opening Instagram before he can think better of it and stop himself. This is going to hurt him, Kai just knows it. But then he remembers Krystal and the soft way she's slipped his phone from his hands to put her number in and the gentle curve of her gaze as she told him how much she thought he was worth it.

"You're not the only one who needs some healing," she'd told him. It was her personal number and he was to call it whenever he felt like he was drowning.

Kai couldn't tell her then, not with his face soaked hot with tears and her hands pressing his head into the safety of her shoulders, that his life is an ocean. There's never a moment when he's not drowning in it; it is always all-consuming and the bruises built by Chanyeol's hands are just the sea foam of another cresting wave.

He remembers this feeling, this helplessness, and clings tight to the sensation of being entirely numb as he gathers enough courage to read Taemin's post.

The picture is seductive, but innocently so, and Kai would scoff at the pretense of it if his time with Chanyeol hadn't taught that reactions can be dangerous and that laughter brings naught but pain.

And then there are the words themselves, the ones that Kai's sure have already set the outside world spinning.

"May your romance with Kai be as hot and hidden as mine once was." He reads this once in his head and then again, but aloud this time, his voice a broken whisper around the straw of Sehun's apology.

Well, Kai thinks, relishing the burst of chocolates flavor coating his tongue as he takes another sip like a form of punishment, he might not have ever labeled what he had with Taemin as a relationship, but one thing's for sure: it's certainly not hidden now.

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted on AFF
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the story.


End file.
